Main navigation

Sanity Savers

A collection of people’s favorite sanity savers.

And please note: some of the links here are what are called “affiliate” links, meaning when you purchase an item through that link, at no extra cost to you, Amazon/other vendors here lets me have a small percentage of the price of that item- I think it’s typically like 3-7%. For something that says 11 bucks, I’d get maybe 77 cents. Hope that’s okay with ya’ll. 🙂 Just wanted to keep it clear!

#1 necessity on the Diet: Stevia of course!

This is what I consider to be The Core Stevia Kit – the main flavors you’ll likely want for some variety on the diet.

Best Powdered Stevia – I have tried many brands in pursuit of finding the best one and this has: 1.) The best taste and least bitter aftertaste. 2.) Contains ONLY stevia and no starchy fillers at all. 3.) It’s organic. This one is a good choice because it has no fillers. A lot of stevia products now have starchy fillers like maltodextrin added to them. This matters because our bodies are extra sensitive to starch levels in Phase 2, so it’s best to be safe.

Because it comes in a bag which I find hard to use, I recommend personally transferring it to an old spice jar with holes in the top/shaker so you can more easily sprinkle stevia or empty out another stevia shaker brand you don’t like,???? like I did:

So this is actually a travel spice container and comes like in a 3 tier thing- I just use 1 tier and keep this little thing in my purse- it’s great because it really is quite tiny AND it has little holes so you can sprinkle stevia in your tea or coffee when out and about.

Grape Flavored Liquid Stevia – a personal favorite that I used in spinach smoothies believe it or not. Seriously, stick with me here. K so you put a ton of spinach, water, ice (if you like), and grape flavored stevia, along with a dash of regular powdered stevia – I do use my vitamix. It’s SUPER good. Don’t knock it till you try it! Counts as one Phase 2 veggie serving.

Chocolate Flavored Stevia – this added to a simple quart of water is divine. Well, maybe in reality it isn’t, but when I was on Phase 2 with an empty stomach, it tasted divine at the time and did quell the chocolate quivers.

Valencia Orange Stevia – This can be used in Phase 2 type smoothies with ice, water, and your 1 tbs. of milk to make a creamsicle type desserty type thing.

My New Fav! Stur stevia flavor extracts – the Stur Variety Pack with 5 flavors is cool to start with and then some of my favorite flavors of that pack ended up being the Pomegranate-Cranberry Stur, and the Strawberry-Watermelon Stur flavor. Now just fyi here, these are more flavor and less sweet – so having the sweet tooth I have, I like these best when I combine them with a couple dashes of regular powdered stevia. These do not give me any indigestion btw. Another fyi, they don’t go far. But on this diet, these little sanity savers are worth every penny- that’s how I look at it anyway.

Measuring your Powdered Stevia:

Since stevia without fillers is very concentrated, we must use TINY measurements for recipes –

Stuff to Make Your Boring Phase 2 Food Taste Better:

Miracle Noodles – Noodles on the diet? What planet am I on? There are 2 things you need to know. They have 0 calories. Zero. And they are considered “off protocol”, so FYI. I used them daily on 3 rounds and I feel very comfortable and safe with their use on the diet. You can read more my breakdown of what miracle noodles are and why I feel comfortable with them here. The noodles are to me a GREAT way to feel more satiated on the diet. They really fill you up and are quite satisfying. They’ve got several “cuts” of noodles including angel hair and fettuccine.

Sauces made with Stevia not splenda! Yes we have arrived. :)- Bare Foods Inc (owner Diana) has this new line and she sent me some to try- The ‘Soppin sauce? Thumbs up and 5 calories for 2 tbs. #thataintgonnahurt The Sweet Mustard Dressing? Thumbs up. 15 calories for 2 tbs. #thatstillaintgonnahurt. These really did taste really good and I’m just not a fan of splenda myself (hurts my tummy) so I’m very glad to see a stevia sweetened product line.

Other Dieters Favorite Teas:

Homemade Stevia Soda – Totally P2 Friendly!

Dieter submitted tip: Homemade “soda” spritzer with Perrier water, vanilla stevia drops, and add my 1 tbsp. of milk to make like a cream soda, or skip the cream, and add mint leaves and a strawberry.

Store-Bought Stevia Sweetened Sodas When Desperate

I don’t recommend these on a regular basis during Phase 2. The reason is they aren’t sweetened only with stevia- they also contain the sugar alcohol erythritol and this could affect blood sugar and results. I did use them on occasion like I said, when desperate. #desperatetimesdesperatemeasures #betterthaneatingcakeya’ll

Examples of desperate situations:

You are at a family get together and the place is infested with nachos. If you’re smart, you might bring your celery AND a stevia soda. 😉

You’re dealing with sugar withdrawals on the diet and are about to quit entirely and drown yourself in an entire box of donuts. Turn to a stevia soda or two to save yourself.

Electric Tea Kettle – maybe this is already a commonly known awesome tool, but I didn’t know about this till I went on vacation with my hubby some years ago and there was this wonderful little tea kettle that boiled water in like 30 seconds, and automatically shut off when it was done boiling, no stove, no screaming kettle to make me come running to turn it off, or god forbid I was outside and it boiled dry and almost burnt my house down. Genius! I used mine every single day. On hCG, I drank LOTS of tea and this made it super convenient to do. This kettle is glass and looks cool.

Spirooli – the way to make noodles out of vegetables. Oh yes, they did. On P2 you can use this with cucumber, and for Phase 3 you can make squash noodles, carrot noodles, it’s practically endless.

Travel on the Diet:

Keeping the hormone cold: I found a few different small insulin coolers which would work equally well for vials of the hormone – so far based on reviews, the following seem the best choices:

The REFILL Diet Workbook for Phase 2 – this contains just the tracking for phase 2 for doing later rounds. I highly recommend getting the original workbook to start because of all the coaching articles and explanations for what and why, and then once you have that under your belt, later rounds of the diet you can get this much slimmer/easier to manage refill workbook just for tracking your progress.

Tracking your Blood Sugar: don’t get scared- totally not something you have to do. I just happen to have a small scientist living in me that finds this type of stuff fascinating and IF you feel like it, it can be very useful information for you both in Phase 2, Phase 3 and beyond.

To test your blood sugar you just need 4 items:

Blood sugar meter – this is the one I use by Freestyle – it’s the LITE model meaning it doesn’t suck up tons of your blood. #Win.

Okay now that I’m posting this here the cost is really adding up! Sheesh! But remember, once you have the meter and thingy that holds the blood prickers, you only have to buy lancets and test strips forever after that. I will try to write a post in the future on how testing my blood sugar has helped me, but one thing I was able to catch is when doing the protocol without fruits, I could see when my blood sugar was too low for me to feel well and take immediate proper steps to correct.

Mitigating Occasional Side Effects dieters deal with:

Replacing Electrolyte balance during the first week of diet:

Leg Muscle Cramps:

Usually a magnesium or potassium deficiency
I take this MagnesiumPotassium – same electrolyte powder as above! Kill 2 birds with one stone

Hair Loss:

This is infrequent but happens from time to time.
One POSSIBLE tip that another lady said really did seem to work for her was to spray a solution of MSM powder mixed with water on her BODY after getting out of the shower – air dry. She swears this stopped her hair loss while on the diet.

MSM PowderSmall Spray bottleBiotin – really does make fresh hair grow! Take this product on Phase 2 only if you are comfortable taking the small amount of coconut oil that’s in it

Loose Skin:

I’m afraid there is not much outside of surgery that can be done for a lot of loose skin after weight loss. However, 1 thing may help to some extent is dry skin brushing during the protocol.

NO Time to Cook Sanity Savers On The Go

Protein Powder

Grass fed beef paleo protein powder (I PROMISE tastes nothing like beef – I make chocolate and vanilla smoothies with this and it’s AMAZING! I seriously don’t how they do it and the texture is super amazing- I make mine thick with lots of ice)

VERY low fat Wild Canned Salmon – I found this at a gas station, believe or not while on vacation recently – not only was it delicious, the size of the can be perfect for 1 serving of protein, it contains only salmon and salt, and had some of the lowest fat content of any canned salmon I’ve seen, which makes it a suitable rogue (off original protocol) choice for phase 2 – I figured I’d just CHECK to see if it was on Amazon and would you believe it- it was.
Eat this plain, or squeeze some mustard on it, and if you have 30 extra seconds, some diced pickles for a quick p2 protein.

Body Fat Testing Places

In regular people terms, body fat testing allows you to find out how much of you is fat, and how much of you is muscle. This can be INCREDIBLY helpful in your weight loss journey. Mine would not have turned out the same without knowing these facts. Our regular bathroom scales have really been holding back and not telling us the whole picture.

There are 3 types of body fat testing that are most reliable – hydrostatic body fat testing (dunk you in water deal), bod pod (air displacement), and DEXA scan or DXA scan (scan your body). Here are some resources for finding a location near you for these types of testings – I recommend doing before after each round if at all possible.

Health Stuff

Ingredients: Aqueous Humic Substances (Terrahydrite™)
“Restore is unlike any supplement on the market. Made in the US, Restore is a soil-derived, scientifically-backed mineral supplement that has been shown in lab studies to strengthen tight junctions in the gut wall, our firewall against toxins entering the body. Restore helps create a biological environment for good gut bacteria to grow and flourish, to support the improvement of overall health.”- for more info on Restore Function/ Usage Guidelines